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Lafayette's curbside composting posts positive results

Far less trash being trucked to landfill

By Anthony Hahn

Staff Writer

Posted:
02/10/2016 03:29:11 PM MST

Eco Cycle's Ivan Ramirez, at right, talks with Blanca Castruita at her home while canvasing the Lafayette Gardens neighborhood in Lafayette in February, 2015, to talk to residents about the composting program. (Jeremy Papasso / Staff Photographer)

One year after the controversial program requiring curbside composting was put into effect, Lafayette households are sending significantly less trash to the landfill, according to Boulder-based nonprofit Eco-Cycle.

More than 200 Lafayette households requested smaller trash carts within the program's first month — a trend the company said continued over the first year.

Throughout the period, the number of 32-gallon carts in use — the smallest size available — climbed 37 percent while the number of large, 64-gallon and 96-gallon carts in use dropped 12 percent, according to the city's data.

"These are very encouraging numbers," Lafayette Mayor Christine Berg said in a statement. "When people realize they can get a smaller, cheaper trash cart if they compost, they get on board."

City council unanimously approved the composting requirement in 2014 as part of a new contract with Republic Services, which also provides residents' recycling and trash pickup.

Though Eco-Cycle now touts the program's success, the mandate initially proved divisive within the community. While certain residents favored the eco-friendly move early on, others opposed the $4.45 monthly fee associated with the program. Some were unaware of the change altogether.

Representatives of Eco-Cycle lead an outreach program to provide information about the program in seven low-income Lafayette neighborhoods during its development stages.

In addition to the company's outreach, a zero-waste grant from the Boulder County Resource Conservation Division aided in educating roughly 1,000 families.

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"Our outreach was very much focused on going door to door where the idea was to introduce and discuss the benefits of the program," said Eco-Cycle's Community Campaigns Director, Randy Moorman. "At the beginning of the program there were a number of homes that were having issues of contamination with their compost and refused pickup. Through outreach to these specific homes, all issues of contamination were gone by July."

The outreach provided to educate Lafayette residents to composting benefits both environmentally and economically has contributed in large part to the program's success, the organization believes.

"After the first 90 days of the rollout, phone calls with questions on the program began to trickle off," Lafayette Public Works Director Doug Short said. "A large part of the program's success can be attributed to the company's initial outreach."

Along with Boulder and Louisville, Lafayette is now the third city in Colorado to require this service. The trend remains relatively obscure on a national scale, however, as Lafayette and its neighboring cities are three of only roughly 200 communities in the country that have some form of residential composting program.

The city's composting program has resulted in a significant decrease in trash volume throughout the past year and smaller garbage carts being requested by residents. (Mark Leffingwell / Hometown Weekly)

About 35 percent of households in the city's service area have signed up for smaller trash carts since the composting service began.

Since compost carts first appeared a year ago, the amount of household waste going to the landfill has dropped 21 percent from 149 pounds per household per year to 117 pounds, according to data collected by the city.

In addition to benefits the program has posed so far, each spring residents will be delivered compost free of charge to be used however needed. Though some were initially skeptical, the program's increasing qualities calmed early fears, said Short.

"There are just so many benefits to composting — both economically and environmentally, residents began to notice quickly. The important thing was to educate families early on and now the results seem to speak for themselves."

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